Fun stuff that’s good for your brain #7: Humor and Laughter

By contributing author Aimee Fountain, who splits her time between Lumos Labs and teaching at American River College.

So this man walks into a bar…

You’ll get unique – and potentially beneficial – activity in your brain if you think something is funny…and maybe even if you don’t, as long as you laugh. While extensive research has been done on the brain mechanisms of negative emotions like depression, fear and anger, positive emotions are often overlooked with the rationale “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” New studies on how humor and laughter influence the brain are leading to an understanding of how positive emotions (and even their simulation) affect brain mechanisms, and this research has provided a broader perspective on new therapies for emotion disorders and pain.

When people were subjected to a battery of jokes and comics, images of their brain activity showed a sort of laugh belt in the brain, running through parts of the frontal lobe, which is important for cognitive processing; the supplementary motor area, important for movement; and the nucleus accumbens, associated with pleasure. Proof of the supplementary motor area’s role in laughter was found accidentally while using electrical stimulation to search for the cause of a young girl’s seizures. Electrically stimulating her motor area triggered laughter.

No longer content to amuse themselves by poking patients’ supplementary motor areas, scientists are attempting to use their findings to determine how humor processing may tie to disease. For example, researchers are examining brain activity in depressed people to see if their humor processing ability is impaired. If it is, then boosting the system’s activity may help depression. Humor seems to give people a natural high since it activates the same reward centers in the brain as euphoric drugs. Also, evidence suggests that viewing funny videos can reduce feelings of pain, relax muscle tension, and prevent negative stress reactions. Beyond brain stimulation, the rest of the body also gets a lift from laughter. Muscles are coordinated. Blood pressure and heart rate are increased. Breathing patterns change. Catecholamine and hormone levels are reduced. And the immune system is boosted. Even faked laughter helps the brain and body. While the conscious mind knows that false laughter is just that, the body can’t tell the difference, and endorphins are released and the physiological benefits occur as they do during genuine mirth. So, when that terrible party guest comes and regales everyone with hilarious stories about his abhorrent dog, your politeness in laughing may benefit more than just your relationship.